(Minghui.org) I am Falun Dafa practitioner in the United States, and my son went to Fei Tian Academy of the Arts a year ago to learn dance. He has visited us a few times since then. Both my husband and I are surprised by his improvement. As parents, we are very satisfied and grateful for the education provided by Fei Tian.
Some people have recently criticized Shen Yun and Fei Tian on social media. As a parent, I’d like to share some of my thoughts.
We are an ordinary Chinese immigrant family in the U.S. I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1996 and my husband did so in 1998. Having practiced for over 20 years, we benefit tremendously, and we know how severe the persecution of Falun Dafa is in China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In our spare time, we participate in activities to raise awareness about the suppression.
Our son and daughter were both born in the U.S. Since childhood, they have been studying Falun Dafa teachings and doing the exercises with us. They know about the persecution in China and they wanted to help out whenever they could, such as by decorating parade floats or volunteering in Shen Yun promotions.
Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa, wrote:
“...so those who are parents have found ways for their children to help combat the persecution.” “So each member of the Dafa community has been engaged in countering the persecution.” (“The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces”)
It was a surprise for us that our son wanted to go to Fei Tian. He started watching Shen Yun every year since he was four. But he never learned dancing, and didn’t even join his friends for martial arts. As a mother, I just wanted him to continue practicing Dafa as he grew up and pick up the torch of countering the persecution. We don’t have other specific requirements for him.
Once when my son volunteered during a Shen Yun show, the production manager encouraged him to apply for Fei Tian. My husband works in technology and I am in the field of management, so we always thought our children would have career paths similar to us. The idea of having him become a professional dancer never occurred to us. While it was surprising and unexpected, I did confirm with the manager the following day about this. She said that my son met the criteria, but whether to apply for it or not depended on the wishes of the child and his parents.
In the following month, my son volunteered to help with Shen Yun shows in two other cities, and all these experiences seemed to inspire him. My husband encouraged him to apply for Fei Tian. I told him that whatever he chose, I would support it. I also told him that going to Shen Yun was a serious choice. After two months of consideration, my son decided to apply for Fei Tian. He felt it was his mission, and he wanted to help Master.
I’m glad he knows what he wants to do and is following his heart to walk his own path when the time is right. As a mother, seeing my 13-year-old son leaving home, I was a little sad. But I also knew that he was leaving home to pursue his dream and fulfill his mission. I am proud and happy for his decision.
Sure enough, my son was admitted. Upon admission, the teacher asked the candidates why they came to Fei Tian, and if it was because of their parents. My son could not speak Chinese well at the time, so he answered in English. “No, I wanted to come myself.” The teacher then asked him, “Are you sure? How many years have you learned dance?” He answered that he had never danced before, but he was willing to give it a try.
Master wrote:
“Shen Yun gives some students a chance to perform with the company through a practicum arrangement. Their parents had hoped that they might be able to help combat the persecution while getting their education, and that was why they sent them to Fei Tian. During the admissions process students have always been asked by the school why they wish to attend Fei Tian, and they have invariably responded that they wanted to help their teacher in the cause of saving lives. They yearn to one day perform with Shen Yun, expose the CCP’s persecution, and help rescue their brethren in China.” (“The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces”)
My son’s experience has confirmed this. If the students didn’t have the wish to help Master, the school wouldn’t accept them. [Editor’s note: For those who didn’t want to join Fei Tian out of their own will, they wouldn’t be able to succeed or stay long even if they were admitted, because it requires strong will to endure hardship both in cultivation and honing their skills to be world-class dancers.]
My son faced a lot of challenges when he first entered school. It was far more difficult learning dance than what he expected. After all, he had never danced before, and had to learn all the basic dance skills from scratch. As parents, we knew that our son would need to endure a lot of hardships. I have no doubt that even students who had some dance training must be prepared to embrace huge challenges to reach professionalism.
In the first two months, every time I asked my son on the phone, “How are you?” he told me, “It’s very difficult. I’m very tired, but I’m OK.” I could tell that he was facing a big challenge, but he didn’t want to tell us the details. I wasn’t sure how long he could persist and whether he would suddenly decide to quit and come home. But he never said that. He never complained to me or backed down. Instead, he reminded me that he was there to fulfill his mission. He was always worried that he had not practiced well enough and was not qualified to stay there. Only then did I realize that this child had such great perseverance and sense of responsibility, which was so different from when he was at home. I believe such potential can only be discovered in a short period of time in the environment of Fei Tian.
The level of perseverance in the face of hardship is definitely not something that can be forced. When my son was at home, I couldn’t force him to do something he didn’t want to do. For example, the band teacher of my son’s middle school required students to practice their instruments at home for at least 15 minutes every day. My son played the trumpet, and after persisting for a few months, he only played in class and no longer practiced at home. At that time, neither my reminders or the teacher’s repeated requests were effective. So I know that the environment of Fei Tian, the teachers’ teaching, the mutual encouragement among students, the intensive daily training, cultural classes, and the study of the Dafa principles, the exercises, and the exchanges in cultivation were all prompting young students to learn independence, self-discipline, perseverance, continuous pursuit of skills, and mutual cooperation. More importantly, it is awakening their nature to cultivate well. This is exactly the experience that we as parents hope our children will have so that they can mature in their cultivation.
My son said that the relationship between his classmates in Fei Tian was very close, and that they are very happy together. Although the professional courses are very challenging, I found that he was happier than attending the public middle school at home. He has found his goal.
When it comes to some students who vent their dissatisfaction about the school after leaving Fei Tian, this is how I see it: Any world-class school has its own unique environment for nurturing the students. The reason why they can enable the students to become top talents in society is not only because of the outstanding teachers and teaching environment, but also due to the quality of the students themselves. It is also very natural for the students who cannot keep up to drop out. When people go to college, every school and every major will have a certain percentage of students who can’t continue, and drop out, and the top and most famous universities are no exception. This is very common in universities in Western society.
In my opinion, students who dropped out and wrote articles criticizing Fei Tian may have forgotten their original intentions when they enrolled in the school.
After all, Fei Tian is a school that is based on the cultivation of Falun Dafa. Just like other religious schools, it must teach spiritual cultivation and the practice of faith. This is something we parents care a lot about.
Although my son had been practicing Falun Dafa with us since he was young, it was difficult to ask him to study Dafa teachings or practice the exercises after he entered middle school. I always worried whether he would completely stop practicing Dafa as he grew up.
After my son went to Fei Tian for half a year, I no longer needed to urge him to study the Dafa teachings or practice the exercises when he came home during the holidays. He managed his time well and began to urge his sister to study the Dafa teachings and practice the exercises with him every day. When sending forth righteous thoughts, he no longer moved around or made a lot of noise like before. Instead, he was quiet and focused. Once, seeing that he was still doing the exercises at midnight, I changed my mind from going to bed to doing the exercises, as I hadn’t done any that day.
My husband and I are deeply moved to see our children making such big improvement in their cultivation.
My husband and I both work full-time, and we always struggled to teach our children Chinese. When my son was little, I read Zhuan Falun in Chinese with him only once. He learned about 20 Chinese characters, and then he stopped learning. Before he went to Fei Tian, he could only understand simple conversations in Chinese, and could not understand Master’s audio lectures. He could only write one or two Chinese characters and could not read Chinese.
At Fei Tian, my son was assigned to a Chinese class suitable for his level. After a year of study, he can now read Zhuan Falun in traditional Chinese, write his thoughts and experiences in traditional Chinese with the help of a computer, and have daily conversations with teachers and classmates in Chinese. When he came home two months ago during his school break, I was surprised that he could understand Master’s lectures when I played the audio in the car.
There is a Chinese saying that strict teachers produce excellent students. Before entering school, I told my son to be mentally prepared. The coaches who train professional competitive athletes are definitely not like the physical education teachers in elementary and middle schools. Those coaches are extremely strict and have very high requirements. The teachers at Fei Tian are training world-class dancers, and the students must be prepared for high-intensity training.
In my son’s first year at Fei Tian, I often discussed with him what was the right way to handle the strict requirements from the dance teachers. I told him that if a student was not the right material and had no potential, the teacher would not waste time on him. But if the teacher was strict with you, it meant that you are of great potential and have lots of room to improve. I said to him, “Don’t have negative thoughts or hold grudges when the teacher was being strict with you. Just practice and meet the teacher’s requirements.”
Regarding the rumors on the internet about how badly the teachers at Fei Tian School treat students or how intense the training is, they probably haven’t seen the vigorous training that professional athletes experience in order to excel in competition. To achieve success, they must go through a painful process; comfort wouldn’t help them much.
At the West Point Military Academy in the United States, freshmen first participate in a six-week cadet basic training. The arduous training is not something that ordinary people can endure.
When I was a child, I received a year of swimming training to become a professional swimmer. Although I was eliminated within a year, that experience has benefited me throughout my life. Because of this experience, I understand that coaches in professional competitions are very strict. But if they think someone has no future in training, they will not be strict with them or spend time to train them. For those who attempt to make a fuss about Shen Yun or the teachers at Fei Tian, I hope they can take a look at the professional trainings of other dancers or athletes first before they jump to a conclusion.
Someone is also claiming the students weren’t receiving proper treatments after suffering injuries. I also want to share the experiences my son had. It felt to me that the school and teachers cared for and protected the students, and I feel at ease having my son studying there.
Not long after my son attended Fei Tian, he developed a cold and a fever. Because it was the first time he felt unwell after leaving home, he was quite homesick. As parents, we also felt a little distressed because we could not take care of him in person. But this is a step that children must learn to be mentally independent and grow strong.
My son asked the teacher for a day off. A teacher asked him to have a good rest, and asked other students to prepare some ginger tea for him. After he recovered, he told me that he suddenly felt that much of the training content was no longer as difficult as before. When answering my question “How are you?” on the phone, he no longer said “I’m OK,” but changed to “I’m good.” I could tell that eliminating karma was a good thing, and suffering was a good thing.
At another time, my son suffered a minor injury and it took a while to heal. The teacher asked him to reduce the timing and intensity of training. My son looked within and found an area for improvement with his character. After that, he recovered quickly and resumed normal training.
There was another story when my son straightened his teeth. His dentist required him to come home for treatment during the year-end holiday, and to return for three intensive treatment sessions in the middle of the semester, including a dental surgery. We applied to the school for him to come home for the treatments, and the school quickly approved it. After my son had the surgery, the dentist asked him not to do strenuous exercise for a week, especially head-down training movements. We communicated the requirements to my son’s teachers and none of them had any issues with it. They even gave him an extra day off to ensure his recovery.
In the YouTube channel “Three Musketeers,” Sam, a dancer with Shen Yun, shared in a video about a serious injury he had a few years ago, the treatment he had, and his recovery process.
As mentioned earlier in this article, Fei Tian is a religious school that aims to help cultivate students in practicing Falun Dafa. Therefore, it has incorporated spiritual growth in all aspects of teaching. Physical suffering is believed to be eliminating our karma and it requires faith and perseverance in the recovering process, in addition to having proper medical treatment. In fact, I heard that Shen Yun dancers’ injury rate is much lower compared to other dance companies, and the dancers’ recovery time is also shorter.
To me, the success of Shen Yun is a miracle. With very limited resources and no help from the outside world, they keep growing and continue to bring authentic Chinese culture to the world, while raising awareness about the persecution of Falun Dafa in China. Success doesn’t always come easy and it usually requires one to first overcome significant hurdles and difficulties. The bigger the success, the greater the difficulty.
Master said:
“While those who practice Dafa are working to counter the persecution and save lives, behind the scenes evil specters are inciting people to attack and persecute practitioners as well as me, on various worldly grounds.” (“The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces”)
At a deeper level, we Dafa practitioners know that the Shen Yun performance is Master’s Fa-rectification in the human world. When there are rumors attacking Shen Yun and Fei Tian, we should look it rationally and not be easily swayed by it. Even for non-practitioners, I believe people with rationality wouldn’t easily believe the rumors, but would analyze the facts and make their own conclusions.
As a parent, I’m confident that our son will study well at Fei Tian, receive professional dance training, and grow spiritually. We believe that Fei Tian is the best environment for childrens’ growth.